Me

So my wife and I were getting ready to attend an awards banquet, where my Father in Law is receiving an award for his volunteer work in assisting veterans. First, the toilet quit working. Then the shower backed up. So did the guest bathroom. We can’t do without plumbing, so I told my wife to go to the banquet without me.

I opened the cleanout and ran a 25 foot snake into it. Nothing. So I went into the master shower and removed the grate on the drain, which was under an inch or so of shower water. That turns out to have been a mistake. I realized that once copious amounts of shit, toilet paper, and water gushed out of the drain, flooded the bathroom, and got the carpet in the master bedroom wet.

So now I build a cofferdam of old towels and break out the shopvac to suck up the water. Then I bring a bucket to sit on into the shower, and run the snake down that drain. Nothing. Just as I go to get up, the bucket collapses, dropping me into the shit filled water. So now I am covered in shit. I can’t even wash up, because no showers or drains. I wind up hosing off in the yard using dish soap and a garden hose.

I then decided that the clog was between the guest bathroom and the sewage connection, so I remove the guest toilet and run the snake down there. Again, nothing.

At this point, I decide that I have done all that I can do and raise the white flag. I have to work in the morning, so the wife and Father in Law will have to meet with the plumber when he arrives at 11am.

I don’t know if this is related to the ongoing problems that I have had with the plumbing, but this stuff always seems to happen on weekends and holidays.

April of 2021, we had a lightning strike. Christmas of 2020, our heat pump failed and required a compressor replacement. On Christmas day. In May 2020, we had an electrical fire. July 2019, we had a lightning strike. July 2018, Lightning strike. Then there was Hurricane Irma in 2017.

Home ownership.

Here it is only June, and we are already seeing July and August like dewpoints. The dewpoint here in Sector Ocho is 79.2 degrees F, as recorded by my weather station and substantiated by another online personal weather station less than a mile away. Dewpoints above 80 degrees F can be fatal for people with breathing problems like Asthma or COPD. I was just outside, filling my truck with fuel, and it was so humid that it was difficult to breathe. With a dewpoint of 79.2 and an actual temperature of 92 degrees, the Relative Humidity is 66.4%, and the Heat Index is 109 degF. This is the part of the year that Florida residents like to refer to as “fuckin’ hot,” except it has arrived a month early. It’s 80 degrees at sunrise, for crying out loud.

The dew point temperature is the temperature at which the air can no longer hold all of its water vapor, and some of the water vapor must condense into liquid water. At 100% relative humidity, the dew point temperature and the air temperature are the same, and clouds or fog can begin to form. While relative humidity is a relative measure of how humid it is, the dew point temperature is an absolute measure of how much water vapor is in the air (how humid it is). In very warm, humid conditions, the dew point temperature can reach 75 to 77 degrees F, but rarely exceeds 80 degrees. The highest Dewpoint ever recorded was 95 degF in Saudi Arabia. The highest ever recorded in the USA was 88 degF in Moorehead, MN. There was once a dewpoint in Melbourne, Florida of 91 degF, but the station that recorded it was not an official one, so it didn’t count.

Dew point is the best indicator of comfort in a hot climate. Once the dew point of the air exceeds 66 degrees Fahrenheit or so, the air begins to feel hot and uncomfortably stuffy. The reason for this, is that your perspiration can not evaporate to cool you off.

Last week I was in Las Vegas. The temperature there was 115 degrees, but the humidity was only 6 percent, which calculates to a 108 degree heat index. I agree. It felt warm in Vegas, like standing in front of an open oven. It doesn’t feel as warm here, but it does feel more oppressive. The air feels thick and sticky.

I hope we get a bit of relief soon, or else I won’t be able to do anything outside until October.

I hate flying. Not because of a fear of flying or crashing. I hate flying because it is a truly horrid experience. Let me tell all of you why:

I arrived at the McCarron airport in Las Vegas yesterday at 4 pm, Pacific time. I have TSA Pre-check, which supposedly means that I have passed a background check that allows me to fly without removing my shoes or belt, among other things. Except the TSA has their metal detector turned to its most sensitive setting, which requires me to remove my wedding ring, watch, and belt EVERY. STINKING. TIME. This REALLY pisses me off. Do you want to know why?

Because on more than one occasion I have had 2- TWO- pepper spray dispensers and a push dagger in my carry on. Once, it was an industrial sized can of bear mace that I had forgotten was in my bag when I flew home from Alaska. The TSA is a bunch of incompetent asshats.

With that out of the way, my flight boarded at 5:30 for a 6:05 departure. With a flight time of four and a half hours, plus a triple time zone change, we were scheduled to arrive in Orlando at 1:40 in the morning.

We were initially delayed because a suitcase had been checked on board by a passenger who was not onboard the flight. Big no-no. So we had to delay while they located the asshole in one of the airport bars. By the time that was sorted out, Southwest airlines had a computer failure that grounded all of the company’s aircraft. We sat at the gate with no air conditioning for over two hours.

The guy in my row, a black man, decided to take off his shirt and socks. He began rubbing his feet and fanning himself with the plane brochure. The smell was horrific. As time marched on, some people left the plane. The guy finally went to a row with open seats.

We finally left the gate at 8:15. There were crying babies in the rows behind me, so I put on my noise cancelling headset. The WiFi in the plane was broken, so no in flight movies, music, or entertainment of any kind. Southwest doesn’t sell or allow any alcohol on their aircraft, so I decided to try for some sleep. You know how that goes.

We landed in Orlando at 3:30, and by the time I collected my bags from the carousel and my car from long term parking, it was 4:30. I finally got home at 5:45, to collapse in my bed until 10 o’clock.

Southwest had another ground stop caused by another computer issue less than 18 hours later. In all, the two delays cancelled or delayed over 2,800 flights.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the entire experience of flying? I will say that, other than flying, it was a very relaxing and much needed week of R&R. Back to work in the morning.

So to sum up my strategy for gambling, the way to maximize my time at the table for the amount I am losing is to put a limit on daily losses. As an example, I will use my just completed trip to Las Vegas as an example. My limit for this trip was $300 a day.

So day one, I played for 2 hours and lost $40 before getting tired and going to bed.

Day two, we went to watch a hockey game at a sports bar before hitting the casino. At the casino, I lost $300 in a total of four hours of play. My total loss for the trip is $340.

Day three, we played Craps for 2 hours after breakfast. I won $300 in that morning session before losing $400 in the afternoon. That means I am down a total of $440.

Day four was Saturday. I wound up losing my full $300, meaning I was down $740 for the trip.

On Sunday, I needed to play slots to earn some comps. I wound up winning $182 on slots before we had to go pickup my mother in law at the airport, and her flight was delayed by 4 and a half hours due to storms in Orlando. I found a Craps table at NYNY and won nearly $1,500.

On day six, I played for just a little bit before heading to the airport and won another $100 and change.

So I began the trip with $1,500 in gambling funds and got back on the plane home with just under $2,400. Not bad for a 6 day trip.

We flew from Orlando to Las Vegas for $400 each, round trip. We checked into the Park MGM. The first four nights were free because of comps.

In total, we spent about $750 in food and alcohol, mostly because we had some comps.

One thing that I want to mention is comps. Those are the free perks that you get for gambling. We stick with the one that gives us the best offers. In our case, that is MGM Resorts.

In this case, we stayed in the hotel for 5 nights at a total cost of $223. I had gotten comped 4 nights for just the cost of resort fees. We also got $200 in free slot play and $100 in free food and drink. I get offers for comped stays 4 or 5 times a year. Sometimes with comped resort fees, sometimes not.

What this means is that we spent under $1,800 for a 6 day, 5 night vacation. Factor in the money won at the table and it was even cheaper.

We went to street party for the Las Vegas hockey team and ate some pretty good BBQ ribs, saw a couple of shows, and did a bit of sightseeing. I got to see an obviously rich Chinese guy take out a $100,000 loan from the casino to gamble with. Saw a fight, got in a fight, and had a pretty good time.

Now I am getting on the plane to go home back to work while my wife is staying in Vegas with her mother for a few more days of mother/daughter time. Now to get some sleep on the plane. I won’t be home until 4 am.

This is more on my issue with the job. I am writing all of this down because it will help me think this through. It also makes for a great post.

This supervisory position where I am working was created a year ago after some patient safety incidents, one of which ultimately resulted in the death of a patient. There was a big management shakeup because of it. This resulted in the old department head for my department getting replaced with the one that is my current boss.

The new boss decided that this unit needed more direct supervision. That is why the supervisors were hired- all within the last year. I was the last of the four who were hired. All of the other three have since moved on. What does THAT tell you about the work culture of this hospital? I don’t know- no one is talking, but the turnover tells me a lot. There is a HUGE morale problem in the place. Keep in mind that my unit is currently at half staffing. **

After I was hired, my boss told me that if we didn’t change how we were doing business, it was likely that state regulators were going to shut us down. It was crazy. This unit had been operating without written policies or procedures for over a decade. That is right in my wheelhouse- one of my Bachelor’s degrees is in EMS systems, and another one is in Public Safety and Health Management. (The other two are in Fire Science and Emergency Medicine)

So I spent my first two weeks there learning how this place did business. Then I wrote an entire policy manual over the next two weeks and submitted it to administration for approval- keeping best practices, and discarding ones that were inefficient or dangerous. Then I went out and took the boards to become nationally certified for this particular job, passed them, and turned my new certs into the hospital. None of that was a part of my job description. I did it because it needed to be done.

The people at HR told me that none of that matters. THAT is what upsets me. The job seems like a good opportunity, because it is badly in need of leadership. However, this issue with the pay and with HR seems like the place may not be salvageable.

The CFO was walked out by security on Friday. It may be that this was not the opportunity it seemed to be when I took the job.

Anyway, I wait and see what the application to the other hospital looks like.

Three months ago, I was hired as one of four shift supervisors for a unit in a local hospital: two on days, two on nights. I was to be one of the daytime supervisors. The unit is budgeted for 14 employees. They had 11 at the time I was hired.

When they made the offer, I was not entirely satisfied with the pay offered. I asked them if there was room for negotiation, and HR told me no. I told them that I would have to contact them in a day or two. I talked it over with my wife, and we took the offered pay.

After I was hired, one of the night supervisors had to resign because his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Two of the others transferred to other departments within two months of me being hired. I am the only supervisor left. On top of that, two employees retired and three resigned in the past month. We are operating by using overtime employees from other units, and by hiring temporary travel nurses.

As a result, I have been working 12 hours a day, six days a week. It’s been tough. I am exhausted.

Yesterday they hired another day shift supervisor, and I begin training him in two weeks. We will be splitting the day schedule: three days one week, four the next. The problem I have?

I got his new hire packet, and I am livid. He is making ten percent more than I am, and he doesn’t have as many certifications or as much experience as I do. He is ten years younger than I am. I went to my boss (the department director), who told me that pay is decided by HR, and suggested I talk to them. So I did.

They refuse to talk to me about the other employee, his experience, or his pay. I get that. They also said that my certifications are not pertinent to pay, because they aren’t required for the job.

I like the job, and I was happy with the conditions, and satisfied with the pay. Until I saw his, and realized that I am training an employee less qualified and making more money.

I just saw another job at another nearby hospital. I am more than qualified for that, and they are offering a four-figure signing bonus. The difference is that I don’t think it will be as satisfying or challenging. I applied. If I am offered the job (which I probably will be), and the pay is higher (I don’t know) I will use it as a bargaining chip where I am. If that doesn’t get me what I want, I might just walk.

I don’t know yet. Stay where I like the job, but am not respected and not making as much as I could? Or a less fulfilling job that is more lucrative?

I guess that will depend on how this plays out.